Andrew Kennard @askennard@qoto.org

#Introduction #FirstToot

Hello everyone, I am a graduate student in Derda Lab at University of Alberta in Edmonton, AB. We use genetically-encoded phage libraries to discover ligands using next-gen sequencing. My research has been focused on creating genetically-encoded multivalent liquid glycan array and probing cell surface glycan binding proteins. My research interests includes glycobiology, bioothgonal chemistry, phage, DEL, and next-gen DNA sequencing. #Glycotime #ChemicalBiology #NGS

Our society treats liberal arts education as a luxury good. Think: Which K12 schools cut supposedly inessential programming to focus on “practical” learning? And which K12 schools still have that supposedly inessential stuff like, say, robust music ensembles?

That is the •same• question as, “Which students does society view as fully privileged, free humans beings, and which does it view as cut out for a life of servitude?”

⚠️ The ⚠️ same ⚠️ question ⚠️
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Here’s the hidden truth of education:

You don’t know what you’re preparing for.

Your teaching doesn’t know. Your future employer doesn’t know. Nobody knows. Not really. What you’re preparing for might not even exist yet. We •hope• it doesn’t exist yet: don’t we educate students in the hope that they will make the world better by changing it? By creating realities that don’t even exist yet?
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The second edition of R for Data Science is out now, and it’s been a blast to join @hadleywickham as a co-author! Learn more about the second edition at https://www.tidyverse.org/blog/2023/07/r4ds-2e/, read it for free at https://r4ds.hadley.nz/, or buy a copy at https://amzn.to/3PTdLRQ. #rstats

One of my professors during PhD used to say “you can drive a truck through the holes in any given paper. so you look for what you *can* learn instead.” and being the smartass grad students we used to think driving that truck was fun. After so many years, I now appreciate her wisdom more than ever. All scholarly work has limitations but it’s refreshing when people critically evaluate what’s the actual value of the research. It's about humility, honesty, rigorous intellectual work.

It’s time for the Senate to create a select committee with full subpoena power to investigate the bribery scandal that is roiling the Supreme Court.

#Scotus #corruption

https://www.propublica.org/article/senators-ask-paul-singer-leonard-leo-accounting-gifts-supreme-court https://www.propublica.org/article/senators-ask-paul-singer-leonard-leo-accounting-gifts-supreme-court?utm_medium=social&utm_source=mastodon&utm_campaign=mastodon-post

PNAS commentary on the first year of their Consultative Peer Review Pilot

'The pilot is designed to encourage the submission of research that is sufficiently multidisciplinary and presents a challenge in finding reviewers, is counter to a prevailing view, or is too far ahead of its time to receive a fair review. Authors whose work qualifies for this review option can submit through the pilot to have their work thoroughly and efficiently reviewed by experts in the fields most relevant to their research.'
#PeerReview #sciencecommunication #scientificpublication

https://www.pnas.org/post/update/one-year-look-pnas-consultative-peer-review-pilot

'Story is now so valued that, in many realms, it has become compulsory—consider the recitations required of asylum seekers or rape victims, who are penalized or dismissed if the parameters of their stories do not readily conform to the genre.
And if a story betrays us? The solution, it seems, is to cast about for a better one.'

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/07/10/seduced-by-story-peter-brooks-bewitching-the-modern-mind-christian-salmon-the-story-paradox-jonathan-gottschall-book-review

When an app asks for permissions, the OS should not only let you answer yes or no. Every category should havev a "yes, but feed the app fake data" option.

Want my contacts for no reason? Have these generated fake ones! Wanna listen to my microphone? Here's random ambiance sounds! Location? I'm on a tiny 5x5m island!

Hell yeah! Put it all in your databases!

Actively sabotaging and punishing services wins over boycotts any day.

New lab paper! Bio-protocol from @NFerrandiz

3D Ultrastructural Visualization of Mitosis Fidelity in Human Cells Using Serial Block Face Scanning Electron Microscopy (SBF-SEM)

https://bio-protocol.org/e4708

#CellBiology #Imaging #VolumeEM

Did you now...? That multi-well plate lids stack and seal nicely so that they can be re-used to store (oily) microscope slides in between? You're welcome 😉 #don'twastewaste

Our paper is out in
Current Biology
🎉🎉
Congrats Sushila & co-authors!

Read more to find out how an oncogene impacts mitotic substrate attachment leading to out-of-plane cell divisions:

https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(23)00723-6

A friend called mindlessly scrolling “rubbing the glass” and if I have to hear it so do you

Do you have coding skills and some familiarity with Python programming? Join our online course on Deep Learning for Microscopy Image Analysis! #DL4MIA

Bring your own microscopy datasets for hands-on learning on image denoising and restoration, image segmentation, failure cases and limitations, with practical insights from experienced trainers.

Register by 4 August 👉 https://humantechnopole.it/en/trainings/ht-deep-learning-for-microscopy-image-analysis-2023/

#sciencemastodon #science #ai #python #humantechnopole #deeplearning #imageanalysis

With @florianjug

@WXFanatic @mappingsupport @ai6yr

Hey, let's be subject to the whims of a DIFFERENT erratic reactionary billionaire!

'Here, we show that yeast paralogous genes are more divergent in transcription than in translation. We explore two causal mechanisms for this predominance of transcriptional divergence: an evolutionary trade-off between the precision and economy of gene expression and a larger mutational target size for transcription.'

https://journals.plos.org/plosgenetics/article?id=10.1371/journal.pgen.1010756

Transferred #mitochondria accumulate reactive oxygen species, promoting proliferation. #Cancer #ReactiveOxygenSpecies #CellCycle https://elifesciences.org/articles/85494?utm_source=mastodon&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=organic

This makes me physically sick. It’s a toxic brew of the artificial scarcity of ‘elite’ institutions, the cheapening of research, and the runaway professionalization of being a kid.

https://www.propublica.org/article/college-high-school-research-peer-review-publications